Hate Group Westboro Baptist Church Says They Are Going to Picket Mandela’s Funeral

Hate Group Westboro Baptist Church Says They Are Going to Picket Mandela’s Funeral

By: Jason Easley

The Westboro Baptist Church is trying to take their platform of hate and intolerance to a whole new level by planning to picket Nelson Mandela’s funeral.
Here is what they tweeted:

THANK GOD for Nelson Mandela being dropped into hell! Westboro Baptist Church booking flight to South Africa (not banned) to picket funeral!
— Westboro Baptist (@WBCSays) December 6, 2013

 WBC may not get very far with their picket because free speech is limited in South Africa. According to Article 16 of the South African Bill of Rights,

Section 16 states,
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes -
(a) freedom of the press and other media;
(b) freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;
(c) freedom of artistic creativity; and
(d) academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.
(2) The right in subsection (1) does not extend to -
(a) propaganda for war;
(b) incitement of imminent violence; or
(c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.
Judging from their Twitter stream, Westboro Baptist Church looks to be in violation of both 2(b) and 2(c). Westboro Baptist Church thinks that Mandela is in hell, because he divorced and remarried. WBC is also promising to picket the late actor Paul Walker’s funeral. In fact, where ever there is a high profile death or natural disaster, WBC can be counted on to threaten to show up and spread their message of hate and intolerance.
People have stood up and done the right thing to stop WBC protests in the past. In 2011, 300 bikers foiled a planned WBC protest after tornadoes devastated Joplin, MO. Earlier this year, Teamsters formed a human shield to block a WBC picket of Boston Marathon bombing victim’s funeral.
I doubt that the Westboro Baptist Church gets entry into South Africa. If they get into the country and are foolish enough to protest Nelson Mandela’s funeral, the potential for violence would be higher than anything that the hate group has ever tried before.
What WBC is planning proves once again that they are one of the most vile hate groups in the world, and hopefully they will be stopped.

Hate Group Westboro Baptist Church Says They Are Going to Picket Mandela’s Funeral was written by Jason Easley for PoliticusUSA.

© PoliticusUSA, Sat, Dec 7th, 2013 — All Rights Reserved

 

Is a Neurotic Form of Christianity Destroying America?

July 12, 2013  

Posted by: Robert De Filippis

 

 
“The deconstruction of Christianity is not an attack on the church but a critique of the idols to which it is vulnerable – the literalism and authoritarianism, the sexism and racism, the militarism, and the love of unrestrained capitalism with which the church in its various forms has today and for too long been entangled, any one of which is toxic to the kingdom of God.”
“Strategically, diplomatically, socially, politically, morally, economically, evangelically, in every possible way we are witness today to a low point in American leadership, an ethical, social, political and biblical catastrophe.”
These passages from the book, What Would Jesus Deconstruct: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture) by John Caputo, taken out of context, might suggest that religion is the singular cause for the continuing trajectory of a deepening dysfunction in our society. But a twisted popular form of Christianity catalyzes two other more powerful ingredients; predatory capitalism and a government that serves the interests of big money.
These three powerful components work together to drag us down the slope to more and more dysfunction in the name of a more moral society – a moral society based on a set of values that are so misapplied as to become destructive.
In other words, these three components create a moral society that destroys its own villages in order to save them.
For instance, while we hammer home the lessons of radical individualism in the guise of moral virtue, we reduce the resources or opportunities required to become self sustaining for great portions of our citizenry.
Just to be sure no one mistakes our moral lesson of self-sufficiency, we raise the interest rates on student loans, and the vital college education needed for success in the future becomes less accessible to the masses.
To be sure our moral lessons continue,  we keep our taxes low and maintain our spending on defense against an imagined enemy and our educational system is gutted to balance the budget.
We are cursed with near sightedness. We can’t seem to see the long term effects on the country when a low skilled, minimally educated workforce must shoulder the tax load of the future or compete with highly educated citizens of other nations.
We have an amazing ability to blame the victims in our troubled society and justify our accusations on a revisionist Christian morality which would be unrecognizable to the Christ himself. Not so much because Christianity was St. Paul’s invention, but because of the absurdity of present day revisionist interpretations.
This modern form of Christianity has become an expedient for the infiltration of a radical form of capitalism intermingled with our public institutions. The very same institutions that were formed to protect the interests of the citizenry, who are now doing the bidding of the mega wealthy, while pointing to the moral failure of the masses they were intended to serve.
Yes, Mr. Caputo, we have many idols. And although I’m encouraged by your efforts to  deconstruct Christianity, I doubt our ability or willingness to take the same actions with capitalism and governance.
It would never get through the Republican led House of Representatives. That’s the one with all the good Christian Tea Party moralists.
Rather, they are satisfied to keep Americans dancing around the golden calf, with the improbable hope that eventually some of capitalism’s largesse will trickle down into their laps.
We are minimum wage, millionaires-in-waiting, fully immersed in this form of idolatry, trusting our day will come.
If there is an unpardonable sin, it’s using religion to separate and discriminate rather than to connect and make whole.
On America’s behalf, Mea Culpa!
Robert De Filippis

Whitehouse Responds to Westboro Baptist Church Petitions

July 3, 2013   

Posted by: Samuel Warde

 

The White House has responded to several  petitions asking that the Westboro Baptist Church be declared a hate group. In addition to the official written response (below) the White House posted a GIF illustrating the country’s common loathing for Westboro Baptist Church.
Official White House Response to Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group  and 4 other petitions                                                     

Here’s What We Have to Say About the Westboro Baptist Church

The We the People Terms of Participation explain that “the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government.”
To the extent that these petitions request a particular law enforcement or adjudicatory action, we cannot issue a comment. In addition, as a matter of practice, the federal government doesn’t maintain a list of hate groups. That’s the prerogative of private organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center.
That all said, we agree that practices such as protesting at the funerals of men and women who died in service to this country and preventing their families from mourning peacefully are reprehensible– a point that President Obama has made for years. That’s why he signed a law to ensure that protesters keep an appropriate distance at military funerals. As the President has said, “The graves of our veterans are hallowed ground, and when men and women die in the service of their country and are laid to rest, it should be done with the utmost honor and respect.”
Moreover, one of the remarkable things about this set of petitions is that it shows just how strong the bonds that unite us can be. Together, we’re more resilient than those who would try to drive us apart.
Take, for instance, this map of all the signers of the petition “Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group” — that we built with the zip codes that people chose to share with us when they signed. The darker color indicates a higher percentage of signers for that particular area’s population. While support for these petitions came from all over the country, it was densely clustered in two places that have unique insight into the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church — Kansas, the state the church calls home, and Newtown, Connecticut, where the church threatened to picket the funerals of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Take a look: